Chapter 1: Mysterium (or How to Stop the Pinball McNuggets)

(Re-post and revisit of a BGG review I did back in January, 2017)

Mysterium... duh.

I had a really bizarre dream the other night.

No (bleep), there I was, in an old school 1980's shopping mall video arcade. You know the type, machine next to machine, sound piling on top of sound, the mixed stench of poor hygiene and the Nathan's Hot Dog stall right next door. There's the guy with the quarters strapped to his belt, and of course, the long line of pinball machines along the far wall. That's where this dream takes us.

In the dream, I'm not operating the machine. No, I'm just a spectator here, but I kid you not, right in front of me, playing pinball is Jackie Chan. THE Jackie Chan. He's looking REALLY intense at this machine he's working, so I get in close.

You see, the machine doesn't have the typical silver ball bouncing around from bumper to bumper. No, that would be too easy. Instead, it's chicken McNuggets. And Jackie NEEDS to keep the chicken McNuggets from dropping down the middle. It's quite literally, life or death.

Dream logic, just go with it.

Sweat drips from Jackie's brow as his fingers dance like lightning to time the flippers just right. And I can do nothing but watch as that oblong fried glob of chicken meat bounces from side to side. And then it happens. It hits that one spot. You know the spot. The one bumper that directs the ball (chicken McNugget) straight down the middle. And it's going down. Down. Down. Down. And...

I wake up.

Shadows Over Camelot

What... The... Flying... McFudge?

I mean, I've had some weird dreams before. There was this one the other night with Candace Cameron, and... (that'll be enough of that... relevant picture is relevant).

Dreams are funny things, and what's more, there are people who believe our dreams hold meaning. If you're one of those, I'd love some insight on this one. But with a game like Mysterium, that's exactly what you're going to need to do. Whether playing the ghost or one of the psychics, you're going to need to need to play the game of Clue... on acid (Bill Clinton voice: I did not have physical relations with the acid).

Mysterium is a game for dimming down the lights and putting on some overly cheesy horror movie music. The ghost player (the game's deceased DM) gets to sort through a hand of obscure imagery, somehow trying to make them relate to real-world people, places, and objects. The psychics get to figure out why Jackie Chan can't let the chicken McNugget drop down the pinball machine (it's because the Chef is the killer, isn't it?!).

Recommend as a light game for 4 - 7 players. At lower player counts I found it less fun, but as all things with personal opinions, YMMV.


One last note on one of the game rules (maybe don't get used to this, as it's totally breaking my narrative). There are rules in the American version (and likely most other versions by now) about the psychic players guessing whether or not they think the other psychic players have guessed correctly about what their visions mean, and then tracking those guesses on a separate track (it's as convoluted as it sounds, but wait, there's more). This is then used to determine how many vision cards each psychic gets to see at endgame, meaning, mixing metaphors, you need to split the party in the final phase. These rules were not in the original Polish version of the game (so I'm lead to believe. I'm not Polish and have not played that version, so it is also quite possible I'm just making this up... Either way...). I find these "new" rules to be an unnecessary addition intending to add some more meat to the game, but the game is perfectly fun without them. When you're going to play a game like Mysterium, you're looking for some chicken McNuggets, not the Arch Deluxe.

Review Revisited: Other than some grammatical clean-up and some enhancing of the narrative for clarity and comedic purposes, the above is more or less my original review from 2017. That was early in Mysterium's life-cycle (or dream-cycle, as it were) for me. A year later, and the game doesn't see the table as much. It's a recurring dream. Eventually, the dream is less intense and loses some of the intrigue it once held. Perhaps the addition of the expansion cards would bring some of that mystery back. I still own the game, and it is still good to bring out as a gateway game for new players, so that is definitely a potential purchase in the future.